Marla Allison is a from Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. This painting is entitled, “Water in the Pottery Clay”.  It is acrylic on canvas.  All of Marla’s paintings have a “gallery wrap” so the painting continues onto the side so that framing is not necessary.

Marla wrote of this painting:

“From the designs of pottery which are usually on a ceramic vessel I have transferred the image to a more grand scale on canvas.  The designs are from my youth, research at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM, and life in general being raised on the Laguna Pueblo reservation.  These designs are specifically from Water designs of clouds and waves all meaning the same thing in replenishing the land with rain and clean natural energy.  I am Water Clan and specifically use the designs in my work to share blessings of rain to be plentiful, to grow the plants of the land, and bring light and rainbows to these lands, as depicted on the canvas.”

Marla says of her painting:

“I am from Laguna Pueblo so I paint Laguna Pueblo. I paint and create for Laguna history to be great and remembered. I paint because I was passed down a gift from my grandfathers; I paint to continue what they started. I began with simple works of loose brush strokes, slight symbols of pottery design, and shapes taught to me in my youth. I researched the artists that I found powerful and connected what they did with what I do. From study and admiration, I found that I had something all my own.  Most of my influence is from pottery design of Laguna Pueblo and Hopi Pueblo. I have also found much influence by the cubism of Pablo Picasso and squares of Paul Klee. I don’t stick with one certain style but it is all my own, that’s what makes it mine. With the use of pottery design, I have painted landscapes that have design on them symbolizing where the clay that holds these designs comes from. I have painted mosaic paintings that are broken up squares and by taking these paintings apart with the image, the viewer is forced to visually put them back together as a way of putting themselves and their past into it in the process.  I paint so I remember where I came from. I paint so others can remember where I come from. I paint to be remembered.”

Allison began her expression through art in her youth and gained formal education at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM where she obtained an Associates’s Degree in three-dimensional art. Since graduating from IAIA, Marla has exhibited artwork at the Heard Museum Indian Fair and Market, the Santa Fe Indian Market, and the Smithsonian Native Art Market in New York. Permanent collections with Marla’s work are found in, The Heard Museum Permanent Collection (Phoenix, AZ), The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (Santa Fe, NM), The Red Cloud Indian School Collections (Pine Ridge, SD), and various private collections around the country and also Rome, Italy.  She was also the 2010 recipient of the Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native Woman’s Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM